


love is so confusing, there’s no peace of mind

by winterstars



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-13 06:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterstars/pseuds/winterstars
Summary: At night, when his mind is free to wander, Caleb thinks of his old friends.





	love is so confusing, there’s no peace of mind

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a short thing about this for months and months, since Liam broke my heart on Talks by mentioning how often Caleb thinks about Astrid and Eodwulf. Then he did it again this week, so I had to actually do it.
> 
> Title from 'Heart of Glass' (Crabtree remix featured on Caleb's official playlist)

It takes exactly eleven minutes to set an Alarm spell around the doors and windows of a bedroom or the perimeter of a campsite. Unwind the wire. Stretch it taut between two hands. Hold it steady, muttering incantations until the magic sticks in the air along the path of the thread. Move along to the next section. Repeat. 

Caleb appreciates the nightly ritual not just for the result that helps settle some of his paranoia. The tactile feeling of the silver wire wrapped around his fingers grounds him, his mental focus narrows to recalling the recitations, and just the act of repeating a structured routine is comforting.

But when he finally settles down to rest, he’s cut loose to drift. The moon will shine on a companion’s face in the right way to bring forth a memory of one of _ them _. Sixteen years ago, Astrid perches at the end of his bed. An open book rests on the curve of a scarred arm. Lips slightly parted and brows furrowed in concentration, she reads by the moonlight, and the glow of it on her skin is breathtaking.

She was always so dedicated to learning, but then again, they all were. They had to be; they were three young prodigies from a small farming town, completely out of their depth in the capital. Despite barely knowing each other in childhood, their shared hometown gave them reason to band together. They studied together to keep up with the wealthier and more experienced students, and defended each other against sneers and doubt. Evidently, Ikithon had seen the value in a trio so desperate to prove themselves and loyal to one another.

His tutelage was a poisoned chalice that glittered so, so brightly. Under his training, they were ablaze with purpose, burning with it. A simple Alarm settles Caleb’s anxiety over the intrusion of burglars or beasts, but he knows it will do nothing if they come for him. He’s haunted by the sight of cold smiles, excited eyes and bloody hands in flickering torchlight. 

At the time, those excursions to Trent’s dungeon thrilled him. The three of them were righteous executioners, training to kill in defence of the Empire. Now, he’s the traitor at the sharp end of the knife. Despite the strength he and his new allies gained, it sometimes catches him in these dark hours of night, freezes his breath and turns his blood to ice - the fear of those competent and resolute murderers.

Murderers held so dearly in his heart. What he had thought was the best time in his life was now irrevocably tainted. But they were still there, still shining through the mess of destructive lies and twisted purpose. There was a boy who always laughed at his jokes, and earnestly called him his brother. There was a girl who who patiently taught him how to dance, and set his heart afire the first time she grabbed him by the shirt and kissed him.

There’s the tangle in the wire, the agonising paradox in Caleb’s thoughts that he rubs his scars raw trying to untwist. He dreads waking up to a blade at his throat, facing Astrid and Eodwulf the Vollstrecker. Yet he stares at a companion’s face in the moonlight and aches for Astrid and Eodwulf, his friends.

It’s not all pitiful nostalgia. With no way of knowing what he’ll find if he ever looks either of them in the eye again, he expects aged faces and hardened hearts. But he hopes; he hopes for a chance to expose Ikithon’s sickening web of lies, to tear them free of their bloodstained mantle and-

And what? Save their souls? They sunk to the bottom right beside him. He waited outside Eodwulf’s family home in the cold, until the other boy exited with a steely expression and gore on his sleeve. He stood beside Astrid in her parent’s kitchen as she delicately and precisely cut up vegetables, vial of powdered nightshade heavy in her pocket.

Lying there in the dark, Caleb’s thoughts always circle back to the same solution. That dangerous, tantalising, impossible idea is the only true hope for any of them. He closes his eyes and lets himself imagine it; he keeps unwinding the thread, pulls it backwards, all the way back, until they are unmade - three innocent children in the golden fields on Blumenthal.


End file.
